The repeated reverses sustained by the Greeks had impaired confidence in their leaders, whose incompetency was more responsible for the defeats of the imperial army than the want of discipline which was so conspicuous among the rank and file. Although the progress of the Moslems was slow, it was certain. Their losses were easily repaired, their impetuosity was rather stimulated than checked by misfortune, and in every respect their recuperative power proved itself superior to that of their enemies. The territory of Sicily, although far from subdued, seemed too limited for their daring ambition. Passing the Strait of Messina they swept the ancient province of Magna-Græcia with destruction. They conquered Apulia and Calabria. They ravaged the duchy of Spoleto. They surprised Ancona. They seized Beneventum, Brindisi, Tarentum, Bari. They occupied the promontory of Misenum, under the very walls of Naples. They established themselves on the coast of Dalmatia. They sacked and burned the ancient city of Capua. They founded the colony of Garigliano, a constant menace to the Papal States, and long the scourge of the Christian principalities of Italy. Independent settlements, composed of soldiers of fortune who had become familiarized with their pitiless calling in the civil wars of Spain and Africa, were founded throughout the south of the Italian Peninsula. The captains of these outlaws assumed the titles of sovereignty, robbed and massacred the Christian peasants, and acquired for the name of Moslem a terror and an execration not inferior to that which distinguished the powers of darkness. Neapolitan pilots guided their corsairs along the shores of the Adriatic. The squadrons of the Sultan of Africa routed the Venetians in several naval encounters, landed forces at the mouth of the Po, drove the commerce of the Italian republics from the sea, and pushed their incursions as far as the confines of Istria. They penetrated to the gates of Rome, destroyed the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, which were situated outside the walls, and insulted the dignity of the Holy See by horrible acts of sacrilege. The relics of the Saints were subjected to unspeakable insult. Monks were slaughtered without mercy or driven away in crowds to toil in the Sicilian marshes. Nuns were seized to be exposed for sale in the slave-markets of Palermo and Kairoan. Had it not been that the Eternal City was too well fortified for an army unprovided with the military engines necessary for a siege to attack it with any prospect of success, the Mohammedan worship might have been introduced into the stronghold of Christianity. With the exception of the sack of Rome by the Constable of Bourbon in a subsequent age, the throne of the Papacy was never subjected to a more humiliating indignity. The constant dissensions of the semi-independent principalities of Italy aided in maintaining the foothold of the Saracens far more than their own valor or resources. Their colonies existed by the sufferance of their foes. The feudal barons, in most instances, detested their Christian neighbors—not infrequently connected with them by ties of blood as well as by the obligations of a common religious belief—far more than the blaspheming Moslems. In vain was the aid of the Emperor of Germany invoked; his plans were thwarted by the discord and treachery of his allies. The forces he despatched for the relief of the Italians were constantly at variance with the Byzantines, and armies, almost equal to the conquest of an empire, were fruitlessly employed in the quarrels of petty sovereigns, whose union was indispensable to the expulsion of a crafty and audacious enemy. The Pope, either through weakness or from motives of policy, seems to have generally kept aloof from this crusade, prosecuted in his behalf as the head of Christendom, as well as to assure the stability of his temporal power.
During the course of these events, Ibrahim-Ibn-Ahmed, a prince of rare administrative talents, of vast accomplishments, of boundless ambition, and of a character remarkable for barbarity even in an age of tyrants, had ascended the throne of Kairoan. Desirous of signalizing his accession by the successful prosecution of an enterprise which his predecessors had in vain attempted, he determined to capture Syracuse. A numerous army was raised. In accordance with the favorite policy of the sovereigns of Africa, special care was exercised that the malcontents who had manifested hostility towards the government should be enrolled in the expedition. When pecuniary inducements failed to tempt these disturbers of the peace, they were seized and forced to embark. The preparations were worthy of the importance and difficulties of the undertaking. The fleet consisted of the swiftest and largest vessels of the Moorish navy. The army was provided with the most formidable engines ever constructed by the Arabs for the siege of any city. The command was intrusted to Giafar-Ibn-Mohammed, the newly appointed Emir of Sicily, an officer of ability, experience, and courage.
It was fifty years since the Moslems had made their first attempt to wrest from the Byzantines this great city renowned from the earliest antiquity. Its conquest had been the cherished dream of many emirs, one after another of whom had retired in disgrace from before its walls. In every campaign, its suburbs, and the lands upon which its population were mainly dependent for subsistence, had been ravaged by squadrons of Moorish horsemen. The diminution of tribute consequent upon the failure and destruction of agricultural products, the massacre and enslavement of the cultivators of the soil, the stagnation of commerce, and the emigration of wealthy citizens, had induced the court of Constantinople—which viewed every question with an eye single to pecuniary advantage—to almost withdraw its support from the last remaining bulwark against the Moslem supremacy in Sicily. The number of inhabitants had been greatly diminished within a quarter of a century. The troops who still maintained the shadow of imperial power in the island were largely recruited from the martial youth of Syracuse. The pestilence, which had so often decimated the besiegers, had not spared the defenders of the city. Thousands had perished from this cause alone. These facts being considered, and the vast extent of its walls being remembered, it is probable that at no previous period of its history was Syracuse so ill qualified to sustain a siege.
The Byzantine commander, aware of his inability to defend the outer fortifications, within which stood the finest houses and the cathedral, withdrew to the inner line which traversed the isthmus separating the two basins of the harbor. So far as the number and importance of its buildings were concerned, the city was more than half taken when the Moslem army, without opposition, filed through the deserted gateways of the outer wall. Upon the narrow isthmus, measuring but little more than a hundred yards in width, the assembled forces of both armies contended furiously for the mastery. The Moorish engineers had invented catapults of improved construction and terrific power, which instead of projecting their missiles in a curve, as had hitherto been the case, hurled them directly against the walls with unheard-of velocity and accuracy of aim. Every expedient familiar to ancient warfare was adopted to drive the garrison to extremity. Mines were carried under the towers. Greek fire was thrown into every quarter of the city, to the dismay of the besieged, who found themselves continually threatened with destructive conflagrations. The Christians were compelled to the exertion of constant vigilance to repel the storming parties that mounted to the attack at all hours of the day and night. A fleet sent by the Emperor to raise the siege was dispersed by the Saracen galleys, which by this victory virtually acquired control of the Mediterranean. The double port was occupied by the enemy, the Greeks were driven from the northern side of the city into the citadel, and the walls which defended the harbor were demolished. The Syracusans were now abandoned to their own resources. Their valor, their endurance, and their loyalty were their sole reliance. No assistance could reach them from any quarter. Assailed by sea and land, they maintained an obstinate defence. With an improvidence characteristic of the Byzantine, no adequate supply of provisions had been collected. The rapid movements of the Moslems and their unexpected appearance had prevented any subsequent reparation of this inexcusable neglect. Despite the disadvantages under which they labored, the people of Syracuse sustained with honor the martial reputation of their city, famous for many a hard-fought contest. Famine destroyed many whom the weapons of the enemy had spared. The inhabitants were reduced to eat moss scraped from the walls, to devour hides and broken bones, even to feed upon the flesh of the slain. An ass’s head was valued at twenty gold byzants; a small measure of grain could not be obtained for less than one hundred and fifty. The use of unwholesome food soon produced a plague. Such was the mortality from this cause alone that one-quarter of the inhabitants perished in a month. Notwithstanding their knowledge of the inertness of the Byzantine government, and the rigid blockade of the Moslems, the Syracusans had not relinquished all hope of relief. The Emperor Basil had grievously disappointed the expectations which had been formed of his character, which had been derived from his early career as a soldier, and from his vigorous measures of reform on his accession to the imperial throne. His mind had proved incapable of withstanding the blighting ecclesiastical influence which pervaded the atmosphere of Constantinople. Of late, he had endeavored to expiate the errors and crimes of former years by a degrading subserviency to the sacerdotal order. He honored the priesthood with employments of the highest importance. Monks, some of them eunuchs of unsavory antecedents, became his advisers in affairs of state. He erected a hundred churches, many of them in honor of St. Michael, as the ineffectual atonement of a guilty conscience for the cruel treatment of his murdered sovereign. And now, while the Syracusans were striving, with undaunted courage, to uphold the dignity and power of the Empire in the only stronghold of Sicily which still resisted the encroachments of the infidel, this abject slave of superstition was employing his soldiers in the construction of a stately basilica, a penance enjoined by the exhortations of his ghostly counsellors.
As the spirits of the besieged fell day by day, and their ranks were thinned by casualty, famine, and disease, the efforts of the Moslems became more determined than ever. The massive walls of the citadel gradually crumbled under the incessant discharges from ballistas and catapults directed against such a limited extent of their circumference. The great tower which defended the larger harbor, undermined, and battered for months by the military engines, was finally precipitated into the water, carrying with it a part of the contiguous defences. This event, long expected by the besiegers, was the signal for a furious assault. Urged on by every consideration of ambition, zeal, avarice, and revenge, the Saracens entered the breach with an impetuosity that threatened to bear down all opposition. But they were met with a determination equal to their own. The garrison, though weakened by privation and fatigue, sustained the struggle with the energy of despair. The inhabitants, all told, scarcely reached the number of twenty thousand. Each one, however, contributed his or her part towards the defence of home and religion; the priests, attired in their sacred vestments, animated the soldiery by their prayers and benedictions, the women cared tenderly for the wounded and the dying. For twenty days and nights the valor of the Syracusans held their assailants at bay. A rampart of corpses, rising for many feet upon the ruins of the demolished wall, afforded a ghastly bulwark for the protection of the besieged, while it poisoned the air far and wide with its horrible effluvium. The combat was hand to hand. No missile weapons were used. The issue could not be doubtful, and yet the Christians never for an instant entertained a thought of surrender. At length the Moslems withdrew, the din of battle ceased, and the governor, without distrusting the intentions of his wily enemy, leaving a small detachment to keep watch, retired with the main body of his forces for a moment’s rest. All at once every engine in the Saracen camp sent forth its deadly projectiles, and from ruined houses, fallen rampart, and shattered wall, the besiegers, at the stirring sound of atabal and trumpet, again rushed forward into the breach. The success of the stratagem was complete. The slender guard to which the careless confidence of the governor had committed the destinies of the devoted city was cut to pieces in an instant. The garrison, massing its forces in the streets, endeavored in vain to stem the furious torrent. The frightened inhabitants sought the sanctuary of the churches only to be butchered at the altar. Exasperated beyond measure by the resistance of a people who, even in the face of death, disdained to yield, the fierce assailants greedily satiated their thirst for blood. The archbishop and three of his ecclesiastical subordinates, seized in the cathedral, were spared on condition of revealing the place where were deposited the sacred vessels used in the ceremonial of public worship. The heroic governor, whose name unfortunately no Christian or Arab writer has deemed worthy to be transmitted to posterity, threw himself with seventy nobles into a tower of the citadel, which was stormed and taken on the ensuing day. As was the custom in the Sicilian wars prosecuted by the Saracens, all men of mature age were put to the sword. Such of these as had escaped the weapons of the enemy during the assault were collected, imprisoned for a week, and then, huddled together in a narrow space, were inhumanly beaten and stoned to death. Some imprudent zealots, who courted martyrdom by reviling the name of Mohammed, were flayed alive. Four thousand captives were disposed of in a single day by this atrocious but effective method. The women and children, without exception, were condemned to slavery. Out of nearly fifteen thousand people, but a few hundred succeeded in evading the vigilant search of the Saracens, to carry into Christian lands the story of a defence seldom equalled for gallantry and endurance in the annals of warfare, and to publish to the astonished and indignant nations of Europe the criminal apathy and cowardice of the vaunted champion of Christendom, the weak and superstitious sovereign of the Eastern Empire. As Syracuse had long been the principal depository of the treasure of the island which had escaped the rapacity of former campaigns, as well as a place far famed for its commerce and the wealth of its citizens, great booty was secured by the conquerors. The Arab chroniclers relate that in no other capital ever subjected to the Moslems did such precious spoil fall into their hands. The ecclesiastic Theodosius, an eye-witness not disposed to exaggerate the success of his enemies, places its value at a million byzants, equal at the present time to more than twenty million dollars. The sacred vessels and utensils taken from the churches weighed five thousand pounds. Composed entirely of the precious metals, their value, intrinsically enormous, was greatly enhanced by their exquisite workmanship, which exhibited the skill of the most accomplished artisans of Constantinople. For some reason, for which at this lapse of time it is impossible to offer a plausible conjecture, the Moslems determined to utterly demolish the stronghold which had so long and so resolutely resisted their arms. As the battle had been confined to a comparatively limited area, the larger portion of the city was still uninjured. The outer walls, which enclosed the suburbs and the splendid mansions of the wealthy and the noble, were intact. Entire streets, while silent and deserted, presented no other evidence of the destructiveness of war. Rows of marble palaces still reared their majestic fronts along the avenues and squares which the opulent Syracusans had embellished with every resource of pomp and luxury. On all sides were elegant colonnades, amphitheatres, temples. In the public gardens the senses were delighted and refreshed by numerous parterres and fountains; in the forums, at every step, the observer was confronted with the speaking effigies of the famous heroes of antiquity. While devoted to the lucrative pursuits of commerce, the attention of the polished citizens of Syracuse had been by no means monopolized by practical occupations. They were generous patrons of literary and artistic genius. Their architects and their sculptors seem to have inherited no small proportion of Attic excellence. No Italian city which derived its civilization from Grecian colonists had preserved unimpaired to such a high degree the evidences of its noble origin. The elegant conceptions embodied in the works of the artists of Syracuse, the skill of their execution, the purity of taste they disclosed, the superiority of their materials, offered a marked contrast to the crude and barbaric efforts of Byzantine mediocrity.
There seemed no reason why this magnificent city should be doomed to annihilation. Its fortifications—whose prodigious strength had been demonstrated by a contest of half a century—could have been easily repaired. Its situation was delightful, its harbors capacious, its territory productive, its mercantile facilities unrivalled. Its abandoned habitations could without difficulty have afforded shelter to a population of a hundred thousand souls. The remembrance of its traditions, the prestige of its name, the glory of its capture, might well have induced the victors to preserve it as an enduring monument to their perseverance and valor. But no considerations of utility or sentiment influenced the ruthless determination of the Moorish commander. The order went forth that Syracuse must be utterly destroyed. An idea can be formed of the massive character of its structures by the statement that two months were required for their demolition. At length, when the walls had been dismantled, the houses razed, and the harbors choked with rubbish, the conquerors applied the torch, and the flames completed the ruin which rapine and vandalism had so successfully begun.
The prisoners and the spoil were despatched to Palermo under a strong guard of Africans. Six days and nights were required for the painful journey. Eager to arrive at their destination, the brutal soldiery refused to allow their captives a moment of rest, and the march was accomplished without a halt, except when the necessity of preparing food or the physical obstacles of the mountain pathways caused delay. At the approach of the melancholy procession the gates of the Moslem capital poured forth its thousands of turbaned spectators. The sight of the long train of captives, and of plunder such as had never before dazzled the eyes of the most experienced veteran, aroused the fervid enthusiasm of the multitude. Some displayed their joy by extravagant gestures and dances, but the majority, more decorous, chanted in unison appropriate passages from the Koran. Many of the captives, after unspeakable sufferings, perished in the subterranean dungeons of Palermo. Others obtained an infamous security by the public renunciation of their faith. The fall of Syracuse practically completes the Moslem conquest of Sicily. The degenerate monarch, who, through his inexcusable neglect, was responsible for the loss of the island, made no serious effort to recover it. A few insignificant towns, the principal of which was Taormina, indebted for their safety rather to the indifference of the Saracens than to their own impregnability, still remained faithful to the Emperor. The Byzantine standard—the emblem of rapacity, bigotry, and every political abuse—disappeared forever from those lofty ramparts where it had waved for so many centuries. Henceforth the prowess of the conquerors was to be principally exerted against each other. The annals of Sicily for many subsequent years are a tedious and unprofitable recital of conspiracies, assassinations, and civil commotions, of the ineffectual efforts of ambitious captains aspiring to independent sovereignty, of the rapid succession of emirs of sanguinary tastes and mediocre abilities, of defiance of and indecisive conflicts with the princes of Kairoan. History was repeating itself. The disorders which had disgraced the society of every Moslem country, when the apparent cohesion of races was dissolved by the defeat and expulsion of the common enemy, were now exhibited on a smaller scale, but with no less vindictiveness, upon the narrow theatre of Sicily. Elevation to the emirate, whether sanctioned or not by the confirmation and investiture of the African Sultan, had become a most perilous distinction. Tribes and factions pursued each other with relentless hatred. Not even in Spain were the glaring defects of the Moslem polity more conspicuous, or the vicious character of the components of the social organization more thoroughly revealed. The constant deportation of criminals and political malcontents by the Sultans of Africa, as a measure of prudence whose inexpediency was demonstrated in every new insurrection, was largely responsible for this general disorganization. It could not reasonably be supposed that these disturbers of public tranquillity, whose lives had been passed amidst the turmoil of religious and military revolution, would remain quiet under any government.
While the Moslem factions with varying success were wasting their energies in suicidal conflicts, the Christian communities, many of which were respectable in wealth and numbers, were enabled by sufferance to enjoy a temporary respite. The conclusion of the war had accomplished one most beneficial result, an interchange of captives. From the dark vaults of noisome dungeons; from the galley, with its scourge and its clanking fetters; from the rice-fields, reeking with miasmatic vapors; from the gilded antechambers of the harem; the prisoners, who had long since abandoned hope, were now led forth to be restored to home and kindred. The struggle which for more than half a century had engaged alike the attention of Christian and Moslem throughout the world was ended. Mankind now began to cast anxious glances towards the new Mohammedan state which formed a stepping-stone by which the hordes of Africa might once more enter Europe. The passage of the Strait of Messina offered fewer obstacles to an invader than that of the Strait of Gibraltar. From the confines of Calabria it was a march of only a few days to Rome, and it was not forgotten that the banners of Islam had once been seen before the walls of the Eternal City. Numerous colonies of Moslems, most of which seemed to threaten permanent occupancy, were established in Southern Italy; the Moorish navy had asserted its power in the Adriatic; an intimate alliance existed between the Republic of Naples and the emirs of Sicily. Not without cause therefore did Christendom regard with unconcealed apprehension the presence of such implacable foes in close proximity to her capital. No adequate means of defence existed to ward off the impending danger. The court of Constantinople had retired discomfited from the field. Italy was distracted by the quarrels of a multitude of insignificant principalities. The Papacy had not yet attained to that commanding position in the political system of Europe which it subsequently occupied, and its temporal power was confined to the agitation of the mob of the capital, whose passions, once aroused, it was not always able to control. The dream of Musa, who boasted that the unity of God would be proclaimed in the Church of St. Peter, seemed now far more easy of realization, when the Saracen armies were separated from Rome by only a narrow channel and a few hours’ march, than when the project first awoke the ambition of that daring general beyond the intervening mountain barriers of the Pyrenees and the Alps.
The peace of the island having been finally assured after much bloodshed, the efforts of the emirs were directed to the extension of their empire in Italy. Political necessity rather than inclination had compelled the rulers of the Saracen settlements in Calabria and Apulia to recognize the superior jurisdiction of the governors of Sicily. The division of those regions between so many powers of different nationalities and forms of government—imperial, republican, theocratic—was the cause of mutual distrust and irreconcilable hatred. Each held aloof from alliance or even from intercourse with the others. Their very weakness was at first the guaranty of their safety. The Moslem, however, took advantage of this circumstance to attack his adversaries in detail. On one side he drove back the Byzantines, who had begun to threaten his settlements on the Gulf of Tarentum. On another, his cavalry swept away the flocks of the Roman Campagna. The republics, restrained by the faith of treaties, and the barons, who had more than once felt the keen edge of the Moorish scimetar, preserved a prudent neutrality. The country in the vicinity of the papal metropolis for a radius of many miles suffered from these inroads. Large districts were rendered uninhabitable. An important source of the food supply of Rome was destroyed. The fury of the Moslems was, as usual, chiefly aimed at the ecclesiastical establishments. Churches and convents were destroyed, the priests butchered, the nuns hurried away to the seraglio. The fugitives who sought an asylum at Rome crowded the streets and the religious houses, and taxed to the utmost the resources of monastic hospitality and benevolence. Within the walls of the Eternal City all was trepidation and despair. An attack was hourly apprehended, the sacred machinery of the church was put in motion to avert the impending calamity, and the result invested with new and profitable credit the performance of penance, the exhibition of relics, and the solemn processions, whose influence was presumed to have effected the deliverance of the Vicar of God.
It is not within the scope of this work to recount in detail the monotonous sequence of fruitless revolutions, changes of rulers, religious disputes, and inveterate animosities of sects and races which compose the history of Sicily under the Arabs. No magnificent dynasty like those of the Ommeyades at Cordova and the Abbasides at Bagdad arose in the island to promote the cause of learning and science, and to reflect imperishable lustre on the Moslem name. No great commander carried his victorious arms beyond the Apennines and the Alps. The maritime superiority acquired by the fleets of Palermo was lost in a day in the bay of Naples, and the Byzantine navy once more became supreme in the Mediterranean. No military exploit worthy of record has been preserved save the storming of Taormina, which still obeyed the Greek Emperor, in the beginning of the tenth century.